Accursed (56 page)

Tipu Gupta sneered now. Full of sorrow and rage and love, he raised his staff and summoned that same siphoning magic. Even as he did, he sent a tiny spell along the length of the wood—and its tip sharpened.

The old man stepped forward suddenly and ran the goddess through with his staff. Her expression became one of surprise, then pain. He shuddered where he stood, rocked by the power of the demon-goddess and by the return of his own energies. The magic of Bharath had been siphoned from him, and now he stole it back. It raced up the staff and poured into him, his muscles painfully rigid as it filled up those hollow places inside him once more.

“I am the Protector of Bharath, deceitful godling! Hear me, Kurukulla, the power is rightfully mine, and I shall—”

Suddenly he stopped, as he looked upon the creature that had been his daughter. Her red, rolling eyes cleared, and for just a moment it was Priya looking out at him from that monstrous face.

“Father?”

Once more he remembered the smile and grace of the little girl she had once been.

Then the four arms of the demon-goddess were in motion. The dagger punched through the side of his neck. Tendons split and veins burst, but it was merely to hold him in place while Kurukulla brought the cleaver down upon his skull.

T
AMARA SAW PRIYA
release William and hope sparked within her. Then she saw him begin to rise, pushing himself up on his hands and knees. She called his name and he looked up. He was obviously weak, and had been injured, but he gave her a small wave to indicate that he would be all right. Relief flooded her, but then she forced herself to focus. William would live.

That knowledge left her free to see to John Haversham, whose fate seemed far less certain. He had already risen to his feet, and there was little trace of the human left in his face. His flesh was patterned with rough scales and tinted green and yellow, and his fingers had curved into wicked talons.

Yet he was resisting. She saw it in his eyes and the way he held back. His every motion was a struggle, a jerking, staggering progression as the human in him fought the Curse of Kali, laboring against the metamorphosis and the monstrousness of Priya’s magic.

“If you cannot . . . help me . . . ,” he said, gazing at her with eyes that seemed lost, as though he peered at her from a cage in Hell, “then you . . . must . . . kill me.”

Farris was beside her, then, black bile and blood on his clothes from the creatures he had already slain. He raised his saber and started for John.

“Do as he says, miss! You’ve no choice. The evil’s in him already. He’ll have your heart out in a moment.”

The stout, courageous man swung the blade in an arc and it whickered toward John’s neck.

“No!” she cried, and already her hands were moving, her fingers twisting. There was no spell that she had studied that would accomplish her intent, but she was the Protector of Albion. She had magic in her veins, in her flesh, and now she collided several spells into one and felt the power rush up from the fiery core of her.

“Claustrum articulus!”

The fog around Farris and John evaporated, and the air grew still, trapping them both, frozen in that very moment. Frozen, until Tamara could figure out what to do with them.

Then she heard a terrible cry and Tipu Gupta began to shout. She spun and watched in horror as Priya’s body bucked and her flesh shifted and the god pushed out from within her.

Tamara had no words.

H
IS THROAT STUNG
with tiny wounds and was warm with the trickle of his own blood, his body covered with long, searing cuts. William forced himself to stand.

His stomach roiled with nausea from the way Priya had violated him, binding him with magic, working him like some marionette, trying to force his sister to sacrifice the queen—Hell, all of Britain—just to spare his life.

“Fucking cow!” he screamed as he staggered toward her, tapping the magic within him again. He could feel the soul of Albion. A moment ago it had been dormant, but now it roared through him with such force that his entire body shook. His eyes burned and he could feel pressure coming from them, could see arcs of golden lightning sparking from them. His hands contorted and he began to summon all the destructive magic he could recall into one devastating spell.

So blinded was he with pain and rage and the surge of magic within him that he did not notice when Priya began to change. Now, as he turned to attack her, he saw what she had become, the hideous, blue-skinned demon-goddess. A belt of human skulls hung around her waist and her sari was in tatters, revealing naked flesh inscribed with whorls and sigils that might have been some ancient language.

Before he could utter a word of incantation, the goddess roared in pain and a wooden spear burst from her back, bright lights of crimson and silver dancing upon its tip. William hesitated. The fog coalesced around him and he took a step closer, trying to discover what was happening.

He saw Tipu Gupta, realized that the old man had run the demon-goddess through with his walking stick, and that he was draining magic from her, somehow. The Protector of Bharath seemed reinvigorated, as though he were growing younger before William’s eyes. He shouted in triumph and sneered at the goddess, whom he called Kurukulla.

And then she killed him. Plunging the dagger into the side of his neck, she hacked his face in two with an enormous gore-stained cleaver. He fell to the ground, hands still clasped around his staff, which slid wetly from her wound.

William screamed in horror. This was not how it was supposed to end. Kurukulla turned, then, her deep blue face stained with Tipu Gupta’s blood. Whatever was left of Priya Gupta, it was trapped inside the goddess, as twisted as Frederick Martin and all the others.

The magic had been building up in William, and now he roared words that erupted as little more than a guttural bellow, and thrust out his hands. The power that burst forth was twined gold and black—a black dark as pitch—and it shot toward the demon bitch goddess with such force that he intended it to tear her body to pieces.

Kurukulla raised her shield and William’s magic struck home, shattering it. The fragments showered to the ground, some of them igniting with flames before they hit the buckled street. The hollow skull she carried as a bowl fell from her grasp and shattered, as well.

The goddess sneered, fresh blood sliding from the edges of her fanged mouth like the slaver of a dog, dripping from her chin. Her shield had protected her, left her untouched. Now with her two empty hands she reached for him. He tried to fight her but she batted his arms aside as though he were a child and grasped him by the shoulders, lifting him from the ground.

Her other two hands came up, ritual dagger in one and scarlet-stained cleaver in the other.

That was the moment when William Swift knew that he was going to die.

And then Tamara’s voice echoed through the fog. “Nigel!” she screamed. “Now!”

William heard a rustle of clothing and a savage grunt from off to his right. He caught only a glimpse of the terrifying face of Nigel Townsend, no less gore-streaked than Kurukulla’s own, as the vampire lunged out of the fog and threw himself at William. Nigel tore him from the goddess’s grasp and continued moving, uncannily strong, carrying them both into the fog. Toward the palace, toward Tamara.

Nigel stumbled, and the two of them sprawled on the road, but William scrambled to his feet in time to find Tamara shouting in Latin, in time to see thick tree roots bursting up through the street and wrapping around the four-armed demon-goddess, who screamed, three eyes wide with fury, rolling and red. Blue-white magic leaped from Tamara’s hands, and the air separating her from Kurukulla warped and crumpled. The spell struck her, buffeting the goddess. The air around her froze and ice formed on her flesh.

Kurukulla began to laugh.

“What can you hope to do?”
the demon-goddess roared in thickly accented English. “Your empire is over and mine is about to begin. I claim vengeance for Bharath. I claim blood and fire and death! The might of Kali is in me! And now the soul of Bharath itself, the magic of Bharath, passes from that decrepit old . . .”

The demon took a halting step backward, clad in blood and rags, chest heaving with astonishment. Her empty hands grasped at the air as though she might capture what she had lost. She turned and glared down at the corpse of Tipu Gupta, then spun toward William, Tamara, and Nigel, her bloodred eyes flaring with a crimson storm.

“What have you done? The power . . . the magic of the Protector is meant to pass to me. The girl stole a taste of it, but she was his chosen successor, his heir. Now that he is dead it should all fall to this flesh, to this body.”

Silver light shone around her, connected to the ravaged remains of Tipu Gupta. As they watched, that magic drifted away into the sky, slipping off into the night and the fog, returning to India.

To Bharath.

“Stupid tart,” William snapped. “Did you really think old Tipu wouldn’t have chosen a new successor after his daughter betrayed him? His first loyalty was to Bharath. The magic will never be yours.”

Kurukulla almost seemed to shrink now. A ripple of crimson light flashed around all four of her hands, and she looked at them with hatred more pure than any emotion William had ever seen.

“Then whose?
Who is Protector of Bharath?
”

Tamara stepped up beside William, and once more that golden light roiled around her clenched fists. The street beneath her feet rumbled as though the Earth was yearning to answer her call again. William held his breath, awed by the natural force that churned inside her.

“We’ll find out one day,” Tamara said, her voice firm, yet almost gentle. “But not you, demon. Not you,
Priya.
You’ll be dead.”

“Priya?” William asked. “What do you—”

But Tamara wasn’t listening. She raised her hands above her head and shouted into the already dispersing fog. “Bodicea! Horatio! Byron! Come to us, all you ghosts of Albion! Already she is diminished, but the night is not yet over! Come to us!”

And at her summons, they came. William and Nigel could only stand and watch as the ghosts swarmed them, darting through the air and across the shattered road, flitting across the top of the palace walls and out of the trees in the park. In seconds, hundreds of the specters had gathered around.

“Do you really believe they will be of any help to you?” Kurukulla snarled, starting forward, three eyes glaring. She brought up the ceremonial dagger with which she had planned to slit William’s throat.
“The blood of Albion will still run red this night!”

Even as she spoke, the gathering of phantoms parted to allow a trio of translucent figures to the fore. Bodicea stood with her spear in one hand and sword in the other. Nelson was grim-faced and dignified, though his own sword had vanished. Even with one arm missing, the sleeve pinned back, he had an air of command that was undeniable.

And then there was Byron. All his humor had gone from him earlier, in the thick of the fight. Now he only rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, hovering slightly higher than the others.

“My friends, do you know what I hate about lunatics?” Byron sighed. “They never know when they’ve lost.”

Tamara reached out for William’s hand, and he clasped hers gladly. He felt the connection instantly, the magic that cycled through both of them. The Protectors of Albion stood side by side, hand in hand, and the entire street trembled. The few accursed men that had not been destroyed by the ghosts had been creeping toward that gathering, still determined to serve their mistress, but they paused now. Whatever remained of rationality in their savage minds was chilled by the sight of the Protectors.

The monstrous thing—the demon-goddess—let out a roar and charged at them.

“Destroy her,” Nigel whispered, his voice velvety and dangerous. “You can’t risk leaving her alive for another try at this.”

William and Tamara exchanged a glance. He nodded.

“Bodicea. Horatio. Take her.”

The spectral queen raised her spear and let out a war cry. Then she rushed at Kurukulla, first into the fray. The goddess’s cleaver swung toward her but, warrior that she was, Bodicea dodged it easily. Without the magic she had stolen, the demon-goddess was weakening.